The naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
-T.S. Eliot
I *love* musicals and many times while I was trying to come up with a name for my business this little verse from CATS would pop into my head, except I would substitute "press" for "cat"... The naming of presses is a difficult matter, it isn't just one of your holiday games. By the time I arrived in the UK and had purchased my big letterpress, I had been planning/dreaming about starting a letterpress studio for a couple of years. I have a notebook that I've been jotting down letterpress ideas in, and I started a list of potential press names, including Little Hill Letterpress (in California I was living in a city called El Cerrito which translates to 'the little hill') and Atelier 225 (I had a studio for awhile, and it was number 225). Most of the 25+ other names are too awful to share publicly, and none of them were really grabbing my heart. Then... then, I found my new press. When I went to look at it, the room was pretty dark and the press was covered in a thick layer of gunk, so I just assumed it was black. When it was delivered, I was surprised to find that it was actually painted a lovely teal blue, which you can see in this picture.
I took to calling it the Old Blue Beast in my head. Shortly after, I started trying to think of a press name with the word blue in it. Blue Press, meh. Big Blue Beast Press... not loving it. I finally asked my husband for some ideas and one of the first things out of his mouth was cerulean. Bingo! It's the colour of the press, but also makes me think of Mediterranean holidays, sitting in a boat on calm blue waters. Very romantic, and just the sort of place I want to be spending my days, even if in reality I'll be in my little studio with my old, dirty blue beast.